


Ramen-jutsu

by Grace_Zaragoza



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Healing, Non-ninja Sasuke, Sasuke gets a job, Sasuke hates the world, Sasuke is not happy, The Way of Ramen, Uchiha Sasuke-centric, child!Sasuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 11:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grace_Zaragoza/pseuds/Grace_Zaragoza
Summary: Sasuke was hurt in more ways than one after Itachi had massacred his family. The path that was made for him by his ancestors was no longer available and Sasuke had to find himself a place in this world. Hopefully for him, the place can sometimes find a person if one looks hard enough.





	Ramen-jutsu

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for any mistakes as I am from Russia and English is obviously not my native language. Thanks!

He really hated them at these moments. It was never really their fault that he only had a big empty house full of memories and ghosts. It was never their fault, but it always felt like it was. While he was sitting in the corner of a ramen stall slurping burning hot noodles, the people around him run, talked, smiled and laughed. He couldn’t imagine himself smiling.  
  
In this corner he could pretend people did not see him, pretend they didn’t whisper behind his back with pity in their eyes: “poor boy, all his family… his brother…”  
  
He wasn’t poor, thank you very much, and they didn’t know a thing about his family, or that Man, so would they just shut up. Sales ladies would offer him fruit and sweets, but everything tasted like dirt for him those days. Ramen felt like ash and grease in his mouth, so it was a nice change.  
– Lad, if you are going just to stay here, you might as well help me a bit, – ramen shop owner’s words startled Sasuke, he was surprised to be addressed directly. Didn’t he know that Sasuke was useless?  
  
– I don’t have chakra, - replied Sasuke flatly.  
  
– What does it have to do with anything? I want you to wipe this table, not to kill someone.  
  
His comment made Sasuke shudder. Truly, he couldn’t even kill that Man. He might clean a bit, as he wasn’t really eager to go home. Well, not home obviously, that place stopped feeling like his home ever since that night. His room, his house, his compound. He could have turned the whole area into a rice field and no one would have a right to say a thing. Or he could start with wiping the table, the rice field could wait.  
  
Sasuke wiped the table, swept the floor outside the stall, watched the owner wash the bowls until it become too late in the evening and couldn’t postpone it anymore.  
  
– You can come back. Kami-sama knows I could use some help. I am not getting any younger, – cheerfully exclaimed the owner.  
  
One would think he was happy he was getting older or he might have really wanted Sasuke’s help. Adult people were so weird. However, did you become an adult when you no longer had any adults to watch over you? Probably not, as that blond kid from Sasuke’s class didn’t have any parents, and he was so stupid in Sasuke’s opinion. What a dobe.  
  
Sasuke was so lost in his thoughts that he only realised he never replied to the ramen shop owner, when he reached his house. It loomed over him framed by a silver moonlight, resembling a corpse of some giant animal. Sasuke had to take a deep breath and count to ten, before he could step inside, suppressing the urge to say loudly “Tadaima”. No one ever replied anyways.  
  
Maybe he really should go to that ramen place tomorrow.  
  
He did. And the day after that and the next. Some days he would spend watching the owner cook, occasionally cleaning the table, while the others he would feel so overwhelmed by customers, by buzz of people coming and going, that he had to leave before midday and regret it immediately. The silence of his house buzzed louder.  
  
Then one day when he arrived to the stall there was someone sitting in his place. Even from behind he could recognize it was the dumb blond kid from the Academy. He was animatedly talking to the shop owner, apparently waiting for his ramen to be cooked. Sasuke hoped he wouldn’t be noticed and quietly sat on the chair furthest from the kid. Having received his bowl of ramen, the dumb kid laughed loudly and nearly dropped the whole thing on his laps. The owner snorted at him, while Sasuke frowned.  
  
\- Oh, I didn’t see you there, – said the owner. – Could to peel those carrots for me?  
  
Apparently Sasuke’s sneaking skills were abysmal, it might be good he was not to become a ninja in the end. Blond kid turned his head to look at him, opened his eyes ridiculously wide and mimicked a fish with his mouth. Perhaps, he was trying to say something, but surprisingly not a sound was made. The kid was really dumb. Sasuke didn’t feel like mastering the art of peeling in front of him so he didn’t move. The blond gaped at him some more.  
  
Having eventually processed the situation he gave Sasuke a toothy grin, while Sasuke only frowned harder. The kid turned back to has ramen, but his talk was now aimed at both of them, Sasuke and the ramen shop owner. He was blabbing about his day at Academy, his dream to become Hokage and so one and so forth. The owner was nodding at the right places, while Sasuke was impassionedly watching them both.  
  
When the kid left, Sasuke went to the other side of a ramen shop, sat on a shaky stool and looked up at the owner so as to inquire “where are the carrots now?” Carrots proved to be stubborn even after the owner patiently showed how the peeling was done. Good thing was that the dumb kid wasn’t there to see Sasuke’s embarrassment.  
  
Carrots and other ramen ingredients became more complying as the next couple of weeks passed. Sasuke found out that the blond kid would come on early Saturdays or on late Wednesday. He didn’t know why these exact days, but he didn’t really care enough to ask. He also didn’t know why the owner wasn’t against him massacring the vegetables, possibly, he was getting too old after all.  
  
As days turned into the weeks and those into months, Sasuke would get more efficient in cleaning, peeling and even making the noodles for the ramen. He found out that the owner’s name was Teuchi, and he also knew too much about Dobe’s life and the lives of his old classmates. Sasuke couldn’t comprehend why he would talk so nicely about people who disliked him, if Sasuke remembered correctly. Things might have changed, of course. He still doubted anyone would choose such a Dobe to become the Hokage, but he never voiced his opinion.  
  
He preferred not to speak at all, unless Teuchi would get annoyed at him and demand a verbal response. When there were no customers Teuchi would make him read and study. Sasuke didn’t think it was important anymore, but it wasn’t like he had anything to do anyways. He diligently practiced kanjis and read the scrolls he borrowed from his teachers in the Academy. Teachers were always happy to help, but the look in the eyes was always too much for Sasuke, that is why he tried to get what he wanted and go back to the ramen stall, where he was seen as a normal person, not some poor soul.  
  
…  
  
He also hated the blond kid. He was like Sasuke in a way, but he had even less, not everyone could have a whole Compound to turn it in a paddy field after all. But the Kid was smiling, was always loud, always noticeable, always in orange. Each his exaggerated gesture rubbed Sasuke the wrong way and he even came to steal Sasuke’s place twice a week. Oh, how he hated him.  
  
Sometimes it felt like the Kid stole Sasuke’s life. He had chakra, he went to Academy, he could become a ninja, but Sasuke could do nothing of it, not after that night. Adults in the hospital said something about trauma, head block and made sad faces. “No hope for you, – they said. – you’re a civilian now”.  
  
How could he become a civilian when his whole family were ninjas? Wasn’t he an Uchiha, didn’t his clan use to be one of the most powerful in Konoha? How could he be a civilian when he still had that Man waiting for him, waiting to be killed? But his family was here no more, the clan was just him and that nukenin Man. His chakra was stuck in the chakra system, just like he was stuck in this situation, stuck in his huge dusty house, stuck in his past, stuck in his head.  
  
Some days he would just lie in his bed not quite sleeping, not quite awake, not moving and not even thinking. Would anyone notice if he died?  
  
Then the next day would come, Sasuke would blink as the sun blinded his eyes, get up to move through his morning routine and go to the ramen stall. Teuchi never questioned his absence and Sasuke never offered any explanations. Not that he had any. Dobe would still come regularly.  
  
– I was here on Saturday, and you were not. Were you sick? You should drink some hot water and eat a bowl of ramen! It always makes me feel better, – he would say grinning widely and continue talking as if Sasuke and Teuchi listened. Sasuke was really not sure that fatty food could make anyone healthier, but to Dobe, ramen was a gift of the Kami. Wouldn’t that make Sasuke and Teuchi the Kami, since they cooked it?  
  
Teuchi showed Sasuke how to recognise ripe and fresh fruits and vegetables, and it didn’t take long for Sasuke to fell in love with tomatoes. They could be eaten raw, were easy to be cooked with eggs or rice, and, most importantly they didn’t taste like ash or grease. More like earth and sun and it was refreshing.  
  
Teuchi would send Sasuke to buy vegetables for the stall. He also sent Sasuke with the blond kid to help him with his grocery. The Kid was really dumb, most times if he went alone he would end up with rotten stuff, so Sasuke usually had to go for the greens himself. While he argued in monosyllables with the sellers to get the price down, Dobe stood somewhere round the corner kicking the dust.  
  
When he saw Sasuke with food, he would give Sasuke the money and smile so widely, Sasuke was sure his lips should split. That never happened, so Sasuke would always receive this smile, whether he had food or not, and be talked at, whether he wanted or not.  
  
…  
Over time he started noticing things. Not all people around were smiling, in fact, most of them were bitter and always angry at something. Dobe would always avoid that kind of people the most. He avoided a lot of things actually. He ignored villagers’ looks, pretended not to hear their words, didn’t go into the crowds, preferring to stay away. He and Sasuke had a lot of in common apparently. Dobe’s attention was negative though. And if the Man’s words were to be trusted he never did anything to deserve it. Just like Sasuke. He simply walked, breathed and ate. He existed and it was enough for him to be hated.  
  
Sasuke was surprised how much you could see when you are at the other side of the stall. People were more like open scrolls, always in themselves, always bored and boring. They had homes, chakra, jobs, families, their kids had their parents and they had meals every day, but they still were not satisfied, still not happy. They were so unlike the dumb kid.  
  
Sasuke remembered his name was Naruto, he just was always Dobe in his head. He forgot the names of his other classmates, never caring much about them in first place and being more interested in his studies and training and that Man. They were all gone anyways, they belonged to Sasuke’s old life, ninja’s life and he couldn’t come back to it. Naruto should have been left in that life too, but he somehow made his way here and stayed. He was still vibrant, still alive, so unlike the other parts of Sasuke’s life and so full of hope.  
  
Sasuke also started to notice the look of Teuchi at Naruto when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t pity the kid, or hate him, there was just sadness with a hint of understanding in his eyes. Than Sasuke realized that was the look he got when he first stumbled upon the ramen stall.  
  
When he was lost, not feeling himself enough even to feel hunger, but he would remember his mother’s voice urging him to eat. So he would leave his bed, leave his room, his house and his compound and look for a place to eat at. He tried many shops and different dishes, but they all tasted like the pity in the eyes of other people.  
  
…  
Teuchi said that a life should be like ramen, full of ingredients. Sasuke thought that there was too much narutomaki in the ramen and maybe too much Naruto in his life, but he was getting used to it.  
  
When he started to understand the concept of money and how the business was run, he realised he was quite rich. He could actually eat out and never work a day in his life and still have some money left. He tried that. The food still tasted ashy, house was cold and empty and after a week he was feeling like he was becoming an Uchiha ghost himself, so he thought that perhaps he needed more ramen in his life. And maybe some Teuchi and Naruto. Not that he would ever tell them that.  
  
So he came back, took this place behind the stall and found some carrots to peel. Naruto stopped commenting his absence very soon, but he never failed to give Sasuke a dazzling smile. Even when it was raining, Naruto was soaked to his bones and had a bruise on his cheek, he would still grin at Sasuke. The sun came out, the clothes got dried and the bruises and cuts were miraculously cured while he ate ramen that Sasuke made for him. He mused that ramen might indeed possess some unknown healing powers, like Naruto always claimed.  
  
The Kid was still dumb and a bit clumsy. He had trouble with writing, trouble with training, he even wasn’t good at aiming kunai. He rarely talked about his misfortunes, only when he got particularly frustrated at something he should be able to do, but was unable to learn. It was Teuchi’s suggestion for Sasuke to show Naruto the way with studies like he had shown Sasuke the way of ramen making.  
  
Sasuke doubted he could teach anyone anything. He didn’t feel like arguing though, opting just to wait until Naruto himself rejected his help at some point.  
  
Unexpectedly, Naruto never did. They would spend their time beside the lake, studying. Or Naruto trained and Sasuke read, occasionally correcting Naruto’s posture or movements. Dobe sometimes started to argue and shouted, while Sasuke just frowned and pretended to leave. Naruto would instantly calm down and try some more, and more, and more, again and again, until finally he could do it normally. It was the same with all homework, all kanji and all ninja moves. Sasuke could do them better than Naruto even though he didn’t have chakra. Naruto would just pout and try harder.  
  
…  
As the seasons changed and years passed it was already time for Naruto’s graduation.  
  
He was still cheerful and bubbly, but Sasuke was better at reading people and he was even better at reading Naruto. The blond dumb kid was worried. He was scared. He was actually terrified. He had worked so hard up to this day and he didn’t know what he would do if he failed. Sasuke knew though. He knew that the life still went on whether you wanted it or not.  
  
So he did the only thing he could for Naruto. He cooked his favourite ramen, packed it and went to the Academy to meet Dobe after his exam. Naruto was sitting quietly on the swings, away from crowd of people, that were talking happily with each other, throwing occasional dirty looks in Naruto’s direction. The children in the crowd had their protectors on their foreheads. Naruto didn’t. Apparently he failed.  
  
When Sasuke approached him, Naruto turned his head to look at Sasuke and said:  
  
– A shadow clone. Never quite managed to make one, you know. It’s just my luck that I got it at the exam.  
  
Sasuke nodded and offered him ramen.  
  
– I am not really hungry now. I want to stay here for a while.  
  
Sasuke could say that ramen made everything better and insist, but Naruto didn’t really believe it, so he put the bowl near the swings and left.  
The next time he saw Naruto, Dobe had a story to tell and a protector on his forehead.  
At that moment, Sasuke realized that Naruto outdid him, leaving him so far behind and starting a new ninja life. He became a genin, he was now one step closer to becoming Hokage like he wanted. He was walking to his dream, while Sasuke was still here in a ramen shop, still a civilian, still alone in the Uchiha’s Compound full of past shadows and almost a shadow himself. He felt like he never hated anyone more than Naruto, not even that Man.  
  
…  
This event was so huge from Sasuke’s point of view, but nothing really changed afterwards. Naruto would come to the ramen stall more often now, sometimes in a company of his teammates, a pink-haired girl from Sasuke’s old class and some black-haired guy with creepy smile. Compared to his smile even Sasuke’s one looked happy and natural, when he just barely curved his lips. Rarely would they be accompanied by their jounin-sensei. Naruto and his friends took a great pleasure in trying to see beneath the sensei’s mask, but he was not jounin for nothing and could even inhale his ramen at the second when everyone blinked.  
  
Naruto told Sasuke about their first team test, which made Sasuke wonder how it would have gone, if it was Sasuke in the Team 7. Would they pass, or would they fail even more spectacularly and get kicked back into the Academy?  
  
Sasuke was still encouraged by Naruto to train with him. It seemed that Naruto would be happy even to clean the toilets as long as he had Sasuke by his side. Not that Sasuke would ever join him in this task anyways. And Naruto’s genin jobs were ridiculous. How anyone could get stronger from chasing cats and weeding the vegetables Sasuke didn’t know. The only one serious protection job they were given turned into suicide mission, but Naruto was happy to recall it all afterwards. He felt bad that the nukenins were killed and he didn’t mind that he himself almost died.  
  
Only after few months of training Naruto’s team was offered to partake in the Chuunin exams. Sasuke thought it was too early, and Naruto was excited.  
  
Teuchi started to take time off to walk around Konoha and write poetry, so Sasuke was more often the one cooking. During the exam Konoha was visited by all kinds of people, several of them, especially one weird looking guy with white hair and glasses, seemed to pay a lot of attention to Sasuke, never really saying anything to him. Sasuke guessed they knew he was Uchiha, but didn’t expect to see him act as a civilian. Sasuke was, in fact, a civilian, so he didn’t really care now.  
  
Later Naruto informed him that there was some nukenin infiltration and the Third passed away protecting the village, which made Sasuke wonder why Naruto wanted to become a Hokage, when Hokages died for the village more often that not.  
  
…  
However, Sasuke never thought that there would be a moment when he would hate Dobe so much more.  
– I got a new sensei, – Naruto talked excitedly, having paused his ramen slurping. – He is really strong. He has huge toads and he is so cool. I am going to leave the village to train with him.  
Apparently, that sensei was a Sennin, but he required inspiration and was too perverted to stay in one place for long. Naruto wasn’t even sure when he was coming back.  
Sasuke suppressed a frown and offered Naruto his fourth bowl of ramen. He realized he hated Naruto, because he was leaving him, just like that Man did. It was a betrayal in Sasuke’s eyes.  
...  
Sasuke could write a book, about how silence could be too loud and empty spaces too big, but he never expected Naruto to become a silence and an empty space in his life. Naruto was just always anything but that. Soon he realized that was actually how one missed somebody. Sasuke used to miss his life, missed his family and even that Man, and now he missed Dobe. He missed, because they were missing. To alleviate that feeling he paid more attention to the world around him. To keep his mind from what he didn't have, he tried to notice what was still around.  
  
So he saw the things he had only heard about in passing before. Those things were of no use to Sasuke at all, but he still had them and no one could really take them from him, no one except for himself. The blueness of the sky, the purity of rain, the beauty of falling red maple leaves, of first white snow or of pink petals.  
  
He was surprised to notice that however all people seemed the same; they still had differences, excluding those customers that ordered green tea to drink with their ramen at the stall. They all had same eyes. These were eyes of a person that lost too much, saw too much and wasn’t quite sure where to go with that entire luggage. They were all rather happy to see Sasuke, they never actively showed it, of course, but Sasuke could somehow recognize the warmth in their eyes.  
  
He was sure there was a bunch of weird tea-loving people in Konoha until one moment, when he saw another person who first bought dango across the street and then ordered green tea at his ramen stall, without even asking for ramen. In fact, Teuchi kept the tea pot and some tea in the ramen stall just for those people. It suddenly clicked: it was one person. Quite possibly it was not just any person, but that one and only person that Sasuke called as that Man in the privacy his head. It must have been him because Sasuke could still remember the same warmth in his dark eyes when he would poke Sasuke's forehead and promise to spend time with him later.  
  
That Man had been just walking around the village in henge, eating dango, visiting Sasuke's ramen place and happily eating Sasuke's food for months by now, and Sasuke felt like shouting. Suppressing that urge, he took a big calming breath like he did when he was a kid, and closed his eyes.  
  
The Man was here, and he couldn't really do anything about that. He was a civilian after all. Unexpectedly, things that he was noticing around came to his mind.  
  
He had rearranged his room, and with sakura blooming outside it felt like his sanctuary again. His house was still not quite his home, but he could try to change that, he could always invite Naruto over to stay when he would come back. His Compound stopped feeling so empty the moment he got some of the houses renovated and started to rent them out. People that came to live there had nothing to do with the Uchihas, so they chased the ghostly presences away. He recalled that Man’s eyes and the look in them, when he was deep in his thoughts. He was good at controlling emotions, but only on his own face. Every time it was his brother’s raw guilt and pain in the eyes of the stranger, as if it was he who was stuck in Tsukiyomi for days not Sasuke. The life did go on, and Sasuke moved on with it. He was just slow to realize that.  
  
It seemed like he outdid Itachi-niisan for once. He got a new life, while Itachi didn’t. And Sasuke wouldn’t be here for Itachi to help him end his existence.  
  
He opened his eyes and saw his brother looking directly at him with a hint of worry on his fake face.

Sasuke smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> When I was studying in China, there was one wonderful evening spent walking around the lake with my marvelous friends. One of us, no idea who, brought up the topic of Naruto, that all of us enjoy. In particular. we started jokingly discuss what would happen if one put Sasuke Uchiha in a space with other versions of himself. The imaginary living room was soon full of Sasukes, baby version, non-massacre version, already killed Itachi and not-yet versions, the one that knows the truth, the old version and so on. Sasuke knows the best, so all of them tried to give advice to each other and it was quite a ruckus. At least I imagined it like that.  
Then one of my friends thought of filthily rich Sasuke that rents houses in the Compound, but we struggled to find motivation for him, as his original motivation was Itachi. And what if Sasuke lost his ability to use chakra and basically became a civilian? For some reason, my friend thought of an image when sour-looking (but secretly pleased) teen-aged Sasuke stands behind ramen stall and looks at Naruto, who is disgustingly cheerful, laughs, loudly talks and inhales ramen. That picture and that suggestion made me think hard about who that Sasuke would be, how he would think and most importantly how did he get here. This baby-fic was made in attempt to answer and amuse myself and my friends.  
The ending is rather open, as I decided not to assume whether he would got chakra back or not, start a family or not. In the scope of the his problems it wasn't important, because first and foremost I wanted Sasuke to heal.  
Thank you Eli and Josie!!


End file.
